Archaeology: What an Ancient Hebrew Note Might Mean

Scholar says five lines of ancient script on a broken piece of pottery confirm Kingdom of Israel's existence in 10th century B.C. Others are cautious.

Gordon Govier/ January 18, 2010

Archaeology: What an Ancient Hebrew Note Might Mean

Scholar says five lines of ancient script on a broken piece of pottery confirm Kingdom of Israel's existence in 10th century B.C. Others are cautious.

Gordon Govier/ January 18, 2010

Five lines of ancient script on a broken piece of pottery, first spotted by a 17-year-old excavation volunteer in the summer of 2008, have been proclaimed as one of the oldest known examples of Hebrew writing. An Israeli historian believes they also testify to the formation of the kingdom of Israel and the writing of Hebrew Scriptures.

The ostracon (a piece of pottery with writing on it, the ancient equivalent of note paper) was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, the 3,000-year-old ruins of a city on a ridge above the Valley of Elah. The ruins overlook the valley where the Bible says David slew Goliath roughly 3,000 years ago.

Professor Gershon Galil, the chair of the Department of Jewish History at Haifa University, has released a reading of the ostracon which he says confirms that the Kingdom of Israel existed in the 10th century B.C. (the time of King David), and that the biblical Scriptures were written centuries earlier than many modern scholars believe.

Whether other scholars will accept Galil's reading after it's published in a scholarly journal remains to be seen. Some already believe he has overstated his case.

"The problem is not that his readings are impossible," said Seth Sanders, a professor of Religion at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and the author of a new book called The Invention of Hebrew. "It's just that none of the most exciting parts of his readings are clearly there in the text."

The ink on the six- by-six-and-a-half-inch sherd is faded, and the text is broken in many places. Three top Israeli epigraphers have already released contrasting translations. "None of them found the full range of words and ideas that Galil did," observed Sanders.

"Whenever a text is found by archaeologists in Israel, it is ...

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